Answers & solutions
Check your answers against our explanations. Remember, there are no ‘trick’ birds or extreme rarities among these...
BIRD 1
In BW, and particularly ID Challenge, we are always banging on about supercilia (the plural of supercilium). Usually, we follow the word with ‘pale eyebrow’ or some such in brackets to explain what it means. The dark line through the eye is the eye-stripe, the pale line above is the supercilium. Of our true tits, only two have a dark eye-stripe and pale supercilium (the others have solid black caps down to eye level): the Crested Tit and the Blue Tit. This ‘crestless’ bird is a Blue Tit. But it is a green and yellow Blue Tit, as it is a juvenile bird, where what would be white feathers in an adult are yellow and blue are green. So: juvenile Blue Tit.
Key features
• Largely yellow and green bird
• Dark eye-stripe, long, pale supercilium (‘eyebrow’)
• Distinct, dark cap
• Tiny but robust bill
BIRD 2
Now, this is an odd looking ‘tit’, isn’t it? The colours are highly unusual, sandy buff and black with chestnut bits. Even the bill seems to be the ‘wrong’ colour, being brownish rather than black as in every other British tit species. The eye is pale, there are black lores (the area between the bill and the eye) but the rest of the head is pale sandy (as are most of the underparts). The back is strikingly black, and the longish tail seems to have a certain amount of black in it. Other features to note include the seemingly very short wings and the circumstantial evidence of a reedy habitat. This a juvenile Bearded Tit and the pale iris and brownish bill mean it is a male.
Key features
• Golden buff with black and chestnut bits
• Brownish bill
• Pale eye, black lores
• Short wings, long tail
BIRD 3
What on Earth is going on here? Look carefully, and you will see a couple of eyes on either side of a black bib and little pointed black bill. But there is a large area of white forehead and surely that is a tall pointed crest at the back, making the bird look (from this angle) as if it is wearing a ‘dunce’s cap’! The aforementioned black bib appears to join with a black line defining the base of the extensively whitish cheeks delineating the contact between the head end and the rest of the underparts: which appear to also be whitish with darker buff flanks. There is only one British tit with a pale face, black bib and tall black and white ‘dunce’s cap’ crest. This is a Crested Tit.
Key features
• Looks like it is wearing a ‘dunce’s cap’
• Pale forehead and cheeks, co
